Deep-sea ecologists Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius and Dr. Frank Wenzhöfer analysed the communities living in the vicinity of cold seeps: deep sea areas where cold, methane-rich fluids emerge from subsurface reservoirs to the sea floor. Theses cold seeps are some of the richest ecosystems on the sea bed, being home to microbes and animal–microbe symbioses that use methane as an energy source. The study „Seafloor oxygen consumption fuelled by methane from cold seeps“ is published in the current issue of Nature Geoscience (DOI: 10.1038/NGEO1926) by the two scientists from the HGF-MPG Research Group on Deep-Sea Ecology and Technology at the Alfred Wegener Institute. Further information and images can be found in this press release of the Max-Planck-Institute for Microbioloby in Bremen (only in German).
Article in Current Issue of Nature Geoscience: Cold Seeps and Methane